Catch a train, and take the kids

May 15, 2014|By Ian Mitchell, Tribune Newspapers

If you're a kid, what's better than sleeping in a bunk bed? Sleeping in a bunk bed on rails.

My sons, now 5 and 9, have loved traveling in Amtrak's family bedrooms, four-bed rooms on the lower level of Superliner sleeping cars. In the last few years, we've taken two train trips, one to visit Glacier National Park in Montana and the other to camp out in Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park. And the kids still ask, When can we go on the train again? My younger son had an Amtrak poster up in his room for years.

For us, a key part of the journey is the family bedroom, a compartment with two adult-size berths, upper and lower, and two child-size berths. We have to share the bathroom and shower down the hall with other sleeping-car passengers, but we like the family bedroom setup because it means the four of us need just one room, not two. Also, because the room stretches the width of the sleeping car, you can see out on both sides of the train, so you don't miss anything as America goes rolling past.

We knew we had landed a coveted spot when on our first trip, to Montana, another family that had been forced to book two rooms in the sleeping car came by our bedroom to check out the accommodations they originally had sought.

There's only one family bedroom in each sleeping car, and sometimes only two sleeping cars per train, so the family bedrooms can be hard to get.

"They can sell out ahead of the other sleeping car spaces," said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari, "and you're always better off to get the lowest fare, in 99 cases of 100, to book ahead."

Family bedrooms are only on the two-level trains, which run on the Auto Train, which carries vehicles between Virginia and Florida; on the Capitol Limited between Washington and Chicago; and on all routes west of Chicago. Magliari said two-level cars are too tall to fit through some tunnels in the East.

So why a train instead of a car? You generally feel less cooped up — you can stretch out, walk around and sometimes even stretch your legs off the train.

During the day, sleeping-car beds are couches you can spread out on, with fold-down tables for writing or games. And at night, a bunk bed gently rocking to the train's motion can't be beat.

Especially for little kids, who on the highway must be strapped in and locked down in their car seats, being able to get up and walk about is novel and freeing.

My sons loved going upstairs to the lounge car's swivel seats or walking to the dining car for meals, included in sleeping-car fares. There are no high-chairs or booster seats, but the dining car has a children's menu of kid-friendly staples. And sleeping-car passengers can have meals served in their rooms for no extra charge; on our trips, we made a point of visiting the dining car for dinner, but it's hard to beat breakfast in bed.

At some stations, the train makes a service stop, so passengers get a few minutes to disembark for some fresh air, if they wish. A half-hour morning stop in remote Minot, N.D., was a chance for our older boy to run off some energy outside. It also let him cross off North Dakota in his what-states-have-I-been-to game. (My rule: If you set foot on the soil of a state, however briefly, you've visited, so our game of trackside tag counts.)

Trains aren't top of mind for most of us in the U.S., where wide-open spaces and fairly cheap airfares have made long rail trips something of a curiosity.

But family travel can work well on the railroad, given the right itinerary and a little planning.

First hurdle: The cost. Taking the overnight City of New Orleans from Chicago to New Orleans this summer would cost $752 for four people in a family bedroom. That might sound pricey when you consider that Southwest Airlines would fly four people from Chicago to New Orleans for a total of $528. You'd get there a lot faster for less.

Or there's the Auto Train; booking a family bedroom for a mid-August trip from Sanford, Fla., to Lorton, Va., would set you back $1,033 for the room plus another $186 for a car (you must book passage for a vehicle on the Auto Train). The $1,219 total sounds far too grand, especially when a Southwest one-way from Orlando to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport starts at $436 for a family of four.

But Amtrak's bill seems more reasonable when you consider that its fare is not just transportation for you — and your car too, in the case of the Auto Train — but also one night's lodging plus meals for four. And a ride on the railroad can be an adventure unto itself.

To accommodate the impatience of youth, we limited our rail journeys to the outbound leg and flew home on airlines that don't charge extra for one-way tickets. We found that train trips of less than 24 hours revive Thomas the Tank Engine daydreams without turning into nightmares of boredom.